Monday, February 15, 2010

The Lexolution Chicken Coop Is Once Again Open For Business

Lex-pollution has re-opened the infamous "Chicken Coop" over on East 40th St. This time it's a Quinn case. We are only getting $32 flat an hour, and the project sucks! There are tons of tags for each document, and the associate from Quinn is strutting around the floor like a Gestapo officer.

No talking allowed, just grind out your work. No Internet access either, naturally. It's a miserable review and even more miserable work environment. They have the heat set on about 110 degrees in here or else it's freezing cold. The bathrooms are filthy as usual and often out of paper towels and soap. Maybe Lexolution should just spread wood shavings or straw on the floor for us to relieve ourselves on. It really is just like a chicken coop! Click Click, cluck cluck! Cock-a-doodle doo!

I'm not going to say much for this thread, since people get angry when I comment. I'm just going to observe.

But I will say this: of course it's 110 degrees in the Lexolution chicken coop. All chicken farmers know that hens lay more eggs when the coop temperature is hot, bordering on stifling. Stop questioning my chicken farming skills. You do what you do well: clicking. I'll do what I do well: clucking.

You are all morons and geeks. Where is Sonia - she is a perspicuous and sane individual. I'd like her opinion. The rest of you shut the hell up. Oh yeah and maybe I'd like Father Eamon to say something about this sorry state of affairs.

I graduated last year and still haven't been able to get one of these temp gigs. I think Lexolution actually blacklisted me or something, because I thought it was somebody else and when I realized my mistake they refused to answer my calls to confirm.

Anyway, what's the secret to getting these temp jobs? Do you just lie and say you have 2 years exp or something?

Ha, ha, ha, ha - nephew. They would be lucky if they could get someone with two years experience! You must not be a fat saddlebag queen - that is why you are not getting the gigs.

Seriously though yes a little experience does count. They also have to "like" you - I am great worker with a solid education but sometimes I don't get these gigs because the ugly recruiter does not "like" me. She must sense I don't think much of her lowly ass while interviewing !! True dat...

You can get blacklisted for everything - from being a little late to going to a doctors appointment or taking time off because your mother died and you ruptured your spleen simultaneously. Hell, I am running out of these bitchy agencies - .... keep plugging...find new agencies...best try and get out of this HELLLLLLLL!!!!

You can be black listed for nothing. They blacklist you for calling them at the wrong time of day although no one ever let you know what is the right time to call them. This is how arbitrary it all is. Don't sweat or take it personally.

re Student Loans

IBR is improved. Right now it is 25 years at 15 percent of income. They are attempting to change it to 20 years at 10 percent of income. Also, just to let those who do not know this (I just found out). If you are not making any money, IBR is zero, and that counts against the period of time that goes into the 25 (and if the law changes 20) years of repayment. So, it can be better than deferment. Just thought I would point that out for anyone on here who does not know this.

To answer 3:30's question: Yes, you must lie to us. We lie to you, you lie to us. That's how this business works. Lying is the new truth. It's counter-intuitive if you were taught to always tell the truth, but if you look at it from the Lies-As-Truth perspective, you were always lying when you told the truth. So be honest and lie, get with the program - it's 2010, for Christ's sake!

However, the best way for you to get temp jobs is not only lying about experience, but also figuring out a way to turn into a linebacker-sized black woman from the islands or Africa.

Because of voluntary affirmative action quotas at Lexolution and every other agency, the paperwork for which we sneak into the tax papers you fill out, we'll select these women for projects, regardless of their experience level or ability to communicate in and understand the American English language. We stock projects with at least 70% of these types, and are sure the other 30% are people, black or white, male or female, who can actually do the job and make up for the incompetence of the other 70%. In this way, we're able to wear The Goodguy Badge, and our law firm clients are able to reflect the brown women in their "diversity" numbers and also wear The Goodguy Badge, since, as we know, they certainly aren't reflected in their associates or partners.

Anyhoo, that's all I have to say. I promised to stay silent, and stay silent I will. I just wanted to educate 3:30 on how things work 'round these parts.

Are you kidding, I'm laying back on my recliner in the sun, on my 90-foot yacht, docked off of Cyprus, being waited on by a pair of leggy blonde Russian runway models, sipping a 2002 Chateauneuf du Pape as I await a moonlight dinner... preparing our peons in Mumbai on the satellite uplink for tomorrow's doc review shenanigans -- uhhh... hard work. And you?

Thank God for the presence of Father Eamon. I feel calmer and feel the Light of Our Lord And Savior.

O Brothers in Arms we shall walk together through the valley of the shadow of death. I shall fear no evil even though the forces of darkness are all around me. The Princes of Darkness, the Dark Horsemen that have overtaken the noble profession of the law shall meet a gory end and truth and light shall be revealed to the meek and exploited, the miserable and wretched of the earth - our lowly legal temps.

O Heavenly Father, Hallejiuah, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Sing with me, sing with me for the Day of Divine Deliverance when tannis root legal masters that rule us will crumble and fall to the sea. Oooooooooo, ooooooo, ooooooooo

How true re: the Lex chicken coop. That building is a nightmare- what it needs is a wrecking ball. The elevators never work, the restroom surely violates some NYC blg. code (if not standards of basic human dignity), and the heating/cooling system is from 1925. The 3rd world slumdogs in Bangalore probably have nicer digs than Lex's chicken coop.

Of course the Debbie Sharps, Scott Korowitzs & Dick-head Osmans could care less. They all probably have private marble-decked bathrooms and serfs to wipe their asses. They yell "ready" like a 3 year old after dropping heat and get cleaned up.

You get what you deserve if you work for these devils. All you have to look fwd. to is plunging rates and the usual gutter working conditions. How is this even news anymore?

3:30, I would totally lie and say I had experience. List a few programs like Summation, Attenex and maybe also Ringtail, say you've got some exposure to each. All these jobs do idiot-assumed training in the beginning so it's not like you'll need to actually know something. Although you might want to poke around on the internet and at least look at the interface before you speak to the pimps.

The working environment sounds like Huron Park Avenue, which is currently only paying $25/hr with no OT. (To be fair the outside associates at the Huron project appear to be reasonable, but then you have the non-admitted-JD Huron staffers who are the jerks.) At least at the lexolution gig maybe you can afford to have a beer after work. It really is a race to the bottom these days.

Oh man, the old Lex chicken coop story back online! I was on the gig there a few years ago when the NYC fire marshalls came in and make Lex move the boxes and cited them for fire code violations, etc. That place is a real ghetto firetrap of a building- I'm suprised NYC hasn't just condemned it.

It was nice having 2 toilets & one sink for 60+ guys too. One was almost always clogged. I'll never forget some schmuck overflowed the one working toilet and there were actually logs floating around on the floor! To this day it's the worst smell I've ever encountered.

And why is the whole place painted cyanide green?

I'd rather panhandle on the 7 train than take a Lex gig at that hellhole. It would be more lucrative and the working conditions much better.

Thanks guys. Well, I don't know if it's actually something to be thankful for to get these projects, but money is money and I'll suffer through it for awhile before I go crazy.

Do these agencies talk to each other? I didn't actually list any agencies on my resume, should I just add a random one, preferably one that has already folded up shop, or just say that I didn't put it on there because they were temp jobs or something goofy like that?

You guys are better than any fucking career service ever was, or I could ask them these types of questions.

Valvina Scissorhands is a "blacktina" from the Dominican Republic. She literally has 9-inch nails, painted in 6 colors which change daily, plus glitter. If you compliment her on said claws, she will accuse you of being racist because you called attention to her nails, attempting to curry favor with her because she is a blacktina.

I'd say you did doc. review at whatever old job you had. Pick one of the doc. review platforms and research it a little bit if they ask you about it. Or you could have done it manually. If you didn't have a former job, you might have done some research for a visiting professor or whatever.

The problem with saying that you've done temp work is that they know the supervisors at the firm you were at and will ask you questions about them.

Can you believe in this shit economy going down the drain faster every day people are still talking about saving Africa and being diverse by giving away temp jobs to Nigerians?I thought this B.S. was only OK if it didn't affect our bottom line. How wrong I was.

Very good 10:14. Seems like you have been reading carefully information imparted by seasoned temps! Good for you - you will be able to sagely traverse the murky waters of Templand more so than that poor fucker who is wondering how to land these gigs. God save his soul.

Yes 9:26 I would not lie about working with an agency. You can probably lie about using the software programs and saying that you did review at small firms /professors etc - but don't just make up a gig. Yeah they might want names of people you worked with and check with them ...

To the person asking about how to get these gigs - it's all a crapshoot. Little to do with your actual ability and intelligence a lot with how much someone feels "comfortable" "secure" or "insecure" with you.

I just had an interview with an overweight black lady and while I can do the job with my eyes closed I KNOW I am not going to get the job. I never get a job with black ladies - esp. fat ones. I am not being racist or anything but for some reason they usually tend to hire their own kind - or guys - but NEVER lighter-skinned chicks. It was a total waste of time. Had I known she was black I would not have even bothered to trek to her office. I wasted so much time and money.

Excuse me - who owns JC Penney suits. Certainly not me. Perhaps an Alfani. You must be the same person who accused people of jacking off to JC Penney catalogues. What is your fascination with that polyester store???

Layoffs result from the jobs being moved offshore and from corporations replacing their domestic work forces with foreigners brought in on H-1B, L-1 and other work visas. The U.S. labor force is being separated from the incomes associated with the goods and services that it consumes. With the rise of offshoring, layoffs are not only due to restrictive monetary policy and inventory buildup. They are also the result of the substitution of cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor by American corporations. Americans cannot be called back to work to jobs that have been moved abroad. In the New Economy, layoffs can continue despite low interest rates and government stimulus programs.To the extent that monetary and fiscal policy can stimulate U.S. consumer demand, much of the demand flows to the goods and services that are produced offshore for U.S. markets. China, for example, benefits from the stimulation of U.S. consumer demand. The rise in China’s GDP is financed by a rise in the U.S. public debt burden.Another barrier to the success of stimulus programs is the high debt levels of Americans. The banks are being criticized for a failure to lend, but much of the problem is that there are no consumers to whom to lend. Most Americans already have more debt than they can handle.Hapless Americans, unrepresented and betrayed, are in store for a greater crisis to come. President Bush’s war deficits were financed by America’s trade deficit. China, Japan, and OPEC, with whom the U.S. runs trade deficits, used their trade surpluses to purchase U.S. Treasury debt, thus financing the U.S. government budget deficit.The problem now is that the U.S. budget deficits have suddenly grown immensely from wars, bankster bailouts, jobs stimulus programs, and lower tax revenues as a result of the serious recession. Budget deficits are now three times the size of the trade deficit. Thus, the surpluses of China, Japan, and OPEC are insufficient to take the newly issued U.S. government debt off the market.If the Treasury’s bonds can’t be sold to investors, pension funds, banks, and foreign governments, the Federal Reserve will have to purchase them by creating new money. When the rest of the world realizes the inflationary implications, the US dollar will lose its reserve currency role. When that happens Americans will experience a large economic shock as their living standards take another big hit.America is on its way to becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs.

The real crisis awaits us. It is the crisis of high unemployment, of stagnant and declining real wages confronted with rising prices from the printing of money to pay the government’s bills and from the dollar’s loss of exchange value. Suddenly, Wal-Mart prices will look like Nieman Marcus prices.Retirees dependent on state pension systems, which cannot print money, might not be paid, or might be paid with IOUs. They will not even have depreciating money with which to try to pay their bills. Desperate tax authorities will squeeze the remaining life out of the middle class.Nothing in Obama’s economic policy is directed at saving the US dollar as reserve currency or the livelihoods of the American people. Obama’s policy, like Bush’s before him, is keyed to the enrichment of Goldman Sachs and the armament industries.Matt Taibbi describes Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentless jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." [Rolling Stone, July 13, 2009] Look at the Goldman Sachs representatives in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. This bankster firm controls the economic policy of the United States.Little wonder that Goldman Sachs has record earnings while the rest of us grow poorer by the day.

The idea is to find the entry level jobs while you're in law school. No shit it's hard to find an entry level job when you're 3 years out and only have temp experience. It's not just law, it's any profession.

Frontline had an interesting episode last week regarding the development of "ShitAir" in the airline industry. Very frightening. The episode even had a debate between a L4L type character who shared a bunk bed laden rat hole with ten other broke pilots and a Joan King type industry spokesman who was defending the status quo. As America further bifurcates into a 3rd world land of the haves vs. have nots, expect this to continue as each industry tries to cater to vastly different economic stratas.

The economy is in shambles and we still have to hear how bad people in other countries have it, and how we should donate all our money to them. I even saw one commercial that gave laptops to kids in Africa. Fucking laptops. This country never gave our kids laptops.

Maybe the new plan is to put everyone outside of the US into heavy debt from higher education too, that way the US can somehow rise again. This is utterly ridiculous.

11:12. I feel your pain. I too recently had an interview with a fat black lady - hey maybe it was the same one. Of course she did not hire me - me being a white woman. I knew instantly from the minute I saw her waddling across the lobby dragging her 300 lb stomach on her flabby thighs she was never going to hire me. Even if I was a non-threatening white bitch I would still not get hired - worse that I was actually much thinner and with a solid education. I tried to be as meek and personality-less as I coule be - but I could tell nothing was going to move this big mountain. She was another nasty, creepy, envious Big Mamma - how are they getting the jobs and why are not the more educated, thinner, fitter, nicer people

What the hell is going on??? what do I have to do to make a living in New York?? Turn into a fat, slobby black woman???

ROOSEVELT, N.Y. - Homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters this winter as the economy founders and joblessness hovers near double digits — a “perfect storm of foreclosures, unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing,” in one official’s eyes.

“We are seeing many families that never before sought government help,” said Greg Blass, commissioner of Social Services in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island.

“We see a spiral in food stamps, heating assistance applications; Medicaid is skyrocketing,” Blass added. “It is truly reaching a stage of being alarming.”

And while I was dressed like a freakin nun out of respect for the interview - there she was wearing a low low low low cut blouse showing all but the nipples of her humongous pendulous breasts that alone weighed about a 100 lbs. These fat ladies do not want to work out or give up Popeye's to look hot and sexy so they just wear revealing blouses to show as much of their saggy boobs as they can. As if that is going to makeup for the jelly body and as if men is not going to notice that rhino ass and thunder thighs. You can't hide them baby elephant!!

College education is worth less in an economy where free market does not exist. You can earn a degree, work all your life and poof all will be taken away when the government decides some other people are more important and you must pay for their failures. Today average American household owes 200K public debt. Our economy is importing more than we export. We borrow from the Chinese and invest in granite countertops. People earn with their college degree, but then they will loose it on taxes. They will loose it in their 401k, IRA. They will loose it in the stock market. They will loose it in their "investment homes" that they buy. The most important education for anybody is financial awareness.

The program that is giving laptops to kids in Africa is a PRIVATE, NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION (NGO) - a charity called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and other related NGOs. No public funds are being used to do that.

You mentioned that this country never provided free laptops to American kids. True, but let's be clear -- do you mean the US government never did, or an NGO or private charity never did?

If you meant the US government never did, please envision a situation in which the US government did give free laptops to US children.

That program would be reviled as "socialist" and would be fought tooth and nail by our so-called "conservatives", who are against the government doing anything for anyone in need (unless those people in "need" happen to be white, privileged business people).

Conservatives say they are against all "welfare" and public "charity" (paid for by taxpayer dollars), but in point of fact, the driving forces of conservatism, i.e. the business community, ALWAYS try to steer federal funds (i.e. taxpayer dollars) to their needs, while being in favor of cutting or depriving the truly needy of any government assistance whatsoever. In short, conservatives are full of hypocrisy and want the entire deck stacked in their favor, 24/7, always, until infinity.

So if the government provided free laptops for American kids, that program would be excoriated as a "socialist" program.

But somehow, when a PRIVATE CHARITABLE NGOS (funded voluntarily by contributors, NOT tax dollars) provides free laptops for kids in the Third World, conservatives want to blur the distinction between government and private charity, and just say that it is "the US" which is providing the charity... and by extension, because this is not being done for US kids, someone, somehwere (who? the US government?) is somehow being unfair.

The truth of the matter is that in this economic rut we, white America, have got our collective asses in due to our own collective greed and criminal negligence of human needs in America, the children of our generation of so-called "privileged" or Middle Class families, can no longer, by and large and to an ever-increasing extent, even afford laptops -- whether provided to them by public largesse, or purchased for them by their increasingly economically-strapped families.

The takeway of all this is that modern American conservative "dogma" is shot through with hypocrisy and non-sequiturs. Even as they make specious comparisons and play to peoples' base emotions, they continue to present a distorted, self-centered view to the world, which places white privileged, suburban America and the "business community" at the center of the universe (even though these twin pillars of US conservatism are, as we speak, fast declining and dying at the hands of China, the economic Frankenstein which they themselves have built, out of their own greed.)

EVERYONE WILL BE OUT ON THE STREET EATING RAT STEW AND ROTTEN GRUEL, OR SLEEPING IN SHELTERS WHILE WORKING 70 HOURS/WEEK AS BAGBOYS AT WALMART. THIS IS WHAT CAPITALISM WANTS FOR 99% OF US... AND THIS IS WHAT IS COMING!!!

IF THIS GENERATION OF AMERICANS HAS KIDS, THEY WILL BE BETTER OFF SELLING THEIR KIDS AS INDENTURED SERVANTS TO WORK IN SWEATSHOPS IN CHINA, SO THEY CAN MAIL BACK "REMITTANCES" TO THEIR AGING PARENTS IN THE US, WHO WILL LIVE IN ROACH-INFESTED DIVE MOTELS AND DINE NIGHTLY ON DISEASED TOADS.

175,000 lawyers being churned out per year.adding to the garbage dump pile of millions of unwanted unemployed lawyers - thrown on top of which are the Nigerians and Indian outsourcerers.

Well I got a liberal arts degree in English and History. I got cum laude in double major. Not everyone can do this feat. Well at least maybe a few people can't but there are millions who do annually keeping the college machine in business, a hungry shark for tuition and student loan money.

Too bad people in my high school got computer, tech, and stock broker degrees and all have good jobs. I have been in school for seven years with nothing to show but a mountain and debt and to be able to throw around some phrases like "res ipsa loquitor". I can learn Latin from Gilbert's.

Law school is so hard I wrote a long paper with lots of footnotes from other people's research. My research consisted of looking up other law review to footnote on Lexis. I can use Lexis Nexis, too.

I got married and my wife divorced me and took me to the cleaners. She was the princess who was marrying an "attorney". But I am unemployed most of the time and occasionally get a short $20 per hour gig. My ex keeps telling the judge that lawyers are rich but I am just too lazy.

Don't feel bad, a friend of mine at the law firm where I was working committed suicide because he couldn't afford to house/feed his wife and 4 kids on his piddling $68,000/year associates job, 8 years out of law school.

They couldn't make their mortgage payments and were in the middle of foreclosure. His wife also married him because he was supposed to be the big, hotshot attorney (although he graduated from a TTT school)... she had no college degree and in this economy no real job prospects. Four hungry, growing kids, ages 16 down to 4.

It's a complicated story, and I don't know the whole story, but his wife threatened to leave due to their financial problems, and he ended up taking his life last summer.

Hey Recruiter Ladies - If you can tell me the race of an interviewer beforehand I can tell you with 100% accuracy if they will hire me. No need to waste your time - just give the race biiiiiatch - if it's a black woman - save your and mine breath. She ain't NEVER going to hire me. I am so sick of going to interview with them. What happened to all the other people - the only interviews I am getting these days are with fat black women. Have they taken over all the jobs???

The other thing is, he actually left a life as a construction worker to get a college degree at 30 and law degree at 33. He would constantly tell us that he made more money as a construction worker than as a lawyer, and partly regretted his decision. However, he was somewhat of an "armchair intellectual", and said he didn't fit in in construction, since he liked to read novels, poetry, National Geographic, etc. In other words, he wanted to be among learned professionals.

I don't mean for this to be depressing to that guy; I think it honestly shows him how fortunate he is. I figure if he hasn't committed suicide by now, he's not the kind disposed to that, and he will overcome his current miserable circumstances.

Remember what Nietzsche said: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" Of course, the caveat to that is that you must not kill yourself first, but I think that guy has that part covered as do most of us on here.

If yous all was not such smarty pants yous git the jobs. Yer too smart fer yer own good. I prostrate myself before Massah Fig and Gary at S&C everyday. That is how I got the job and that is how I keep it fools. Being inteliigent is not enuff - you gotta make yer massa feel great. Yous all red too many books and not enuff people.

If yous all was not such smarty pants yous git the jobs. Yer too smart fer yer own good. I prostrate myself before Massah Fig and Gary at S&C everyday. That is how I got the job and that is how I keep it fools. Being inteliigent is not enuff - you gotta make yer massa feel great. Yous all red too many books and not enuff people.

99% of law students go to law school because of prestige and find a wife for that reason, judging from everyone I know usually an uneducated housewife. She can brag about having a rich attorney husband. When reality sets in the fraud is over and the husband is finished for life.........since he will have no money to pay the alimony and child support. The middle class nightmare.

Is it just me but is the job market Dry Gulch, Texas. I am on Monster.com and every agency in the universe and only get sent openings for secretaries and controllers. Doesn't this tell you there is zero and maybe negative demand for lawyers?

As the rate keeps going down and down the Nigerian leeches grab the jobs for $20 an hour and do their old ghost multiple job deals scamming every nickel out of the firms while the J.D.'s worry about their image and "I wouldn't do anything to hurt my rep with the agency. Rep is everything." Meanwhile he's working in a Mickey D's job but without the job secutiry and benefits.

Don't feel bad, a friend of mine at the law firm where I was working committed suicide because he couldn't afford to house/feed his wife and 4 kids on his piddling $68,000/year associates job, 8 years out of law school.__________________________________

Bingo! The absurd idea that even if you start in 35 K a year shitlaw you'll work your way up to 100 K is laughable. Most ID firms top out in the mid 60s after 7-10 years. There is no partnership since there's no new business left to get. Most big carriers have taken everything in house so they can pay even more abysmal rates for the defense of the trip n slip garbage cases.

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Doc review in DC is pretty bad. If you are normal and look around it would appear that you've been shut in an insane asylum. I hate it so much my stomach hurts, there are always those who make the review hostile for no apparent reason but to fulfill the stereotype of contract attorneys. The agenvies dont care all they want is warm bodies even if they belong in a psych ward--so they can bill. To the like of them both categories-I pray they rot in hell.

Guys, the law firms and corporations using staffing agencies use these doc review projects to meet their affirmative action quotas/obligations for the ABA and feds......then they keep their preferences for the associates etc. Moreover, it is not that unusual for a partner at many of the law firms these staffing agencies hire reviewers for to have a piece of their staffing agency, and the partner also keeps the staffing agency afloat by advancing on credit etc. This is why you are not getting hired....the recruiters are working impliedly for the law firm or partner solely to help fill slots for the AA quota.....unfortunatley, it has nothing to do with anything real....its more of the dwemming down, but now institutionlized in the form of staffing agencies.

Hey just went to interviewed with update legal, compliance, Lexolution and de novo in DC. This is going to be my first project. Told them I was fluent in an Asian language. What do you all gurus think my prospect of being hired is any time soon? And how are these agencies?